While the drug reform movement debates
the seemliness of pointing out the connection between drug prohibition
and the funding of the Osama bin Laden network, hardliners and drug warriors
in Washington and elsewhere are showing no such scruples. Even before
the dust had settled around the site of the World Trade Center, US and
foreign political figures were attempting to make political hay out of
the drugs-terror link.

Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), a member of the
Foreign Affairs Committee with presidential aspirations, was quick off
the mark, telling the Associated Press last week that bid Laden's Al-Qaeda
network had profited handsomely from the drug trade. He did not present
any evidence to buttress his claim. Then, seemingly possessed by
the ghost of Harry Anslinger, who in the 1950s warned that heroin was a
devious plot designed by the Red Chinese to weaken the nation's moral fabric,
Kerry added that Islamic fundamentalists have as an additional goal to
"get as many people in the West drugged out and screwed up as they can.
That's part of their revenge on the world," he explained.

Kerry was not alone in jumping on the "drugs
fund terrorism" bandwagon. Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert (R-IL)
last week called a press conference to announce the reinvigoration of the
Speaker's Task Force for a Drug Free America in order to combat drug trafficking,
which Hastert linked to terrorism.

"By going after the drug trade, we reduce
the ability of these terrorists to launch attacks against the United States
and other democracies," said Hastert. "The illegal drug trade is
the financial engine that fuels many terrorist organizations around the
world, including Osama bin Laden."

Among Hastert's cohorts on the task force
are such drug policy hardliners as Reps. John Mica (R-FL), Rob Portman
(R-OH), and Mark Souder (R-IN). Also reappointed to the task force
was Rep. Bob Barr (R-GA), the Jekyll-and-Hyde congressman from suburban
Atlanta who is an ardent foe of government intervention into citizens'
lives -- except when it comes to drugs. Barr came very close to blaming
American drug consumers for the attacks in his comments at the news conference.

"As our nation enters into sustained conflict
with terrorist organizations, and those states, such as Afghanistan, which
harbor them, all Americans have a responsibility to do what they can to
support this effort," said Barr. "One way to not only strike a blow
against terrorism, but to promote security at home, is to strongly oppose
the use and proliferation of mind-altering drugs. The statistics
from America's Drug Enforcement Administration are clear," Barr claimed,
"terrorist organizations abroad are supported in large part by the sale
of illegal substances on the streets of America."

[That is a sweeping generalizations.
As DRCNet noted last week (http://www.drcnet.org/wol/203.html#politicalviolence),
Middle Eastern terrorist organizations derive an estimated 25-30% of their
funds from the drug trade. That percentage may be even lower for
Al-Qaeda, which benefits from bin Laden's personal fortune and the network
of businesses he has established. Other sources of funding for such
groups include remittances from expatriates working in wealthy countries,
donations from charities, and other criminal activities, including counterfeiting
and gunrunning. The Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), for example,
derived some income from the heroin trade, according to the Geopolitical
Drug Dispatch, but also got generous remittances from the Albanian diaspora
and from strong-arm "taxation" of Albanian businesses. Paramilitary
formations on both sides of the Northern Ireland dispute have dabbling
in drug retailing as a source of funds, but according to the Government
Accounting Office, there is little evidence of substantial drug involvement
by either the Irish Republican Army (IRA) or the Royal Ulster Constabulary
(RUC). Some conflicts, however, are clearly driven by illicit drug
profits, with Colombia being a case in point. There, both the leftist
FARC guerrillas and the rightist paramilitaries tax the coca/cocaine trade.
In widely published comments, Carlos Castano, until recently head of the
paramilitaries, admitted that drug money constituted 70% of his group's
finances. Lebanese groups, such as Hezbollah, on the other hand,
could not have profited from the Lebanese hash trade in recent years because
the crop had been successfully suppressed until this year.]

Bob Weiner, former spokesman for the Office
of National Drug Control Policy (the drug czar's office) has also jumped
on the attacks to push his drug war agenda. Only days before the
attacks, Weiner had been full of critical questions for drug czar nominee
John Walters, but he then reversed himself, calling for Walters' quick
confirmation as part of the broader "war on terrorism."

"The drug czar can make an enormous contribution
to the current war against terrorism by emphasizing terrorism's link to
drug trafficking," wrote the hyperactive Weiner in a self-generated press
release.

This week, in a letter to the Washington
Post, Weiner strove to hammer home the drug-terror connection. "We
could stop a huge portion of the funding for terrorism if we went after
the money of the drug traffickers," wrote Weiner. "The attorney general,
the secretary of state, and the new drug czar should devote resources to
find and block the funding base of the drug traffickers in key terrorist
states such as Afghanistan and Colombia."

Such arguments have not been limited to
politicians from the US. Russian leaders, for example, have been
quick to apply the terrorist label against the Moslem rebels in Chechnya,
and to link them to both bin Laden and the Afghan opium trade.

Colombian nationals have also been quick
to pick up on the potential. According to Colombian political analyst
Carlos Franco, quoted in the Associated Press last week, US assistance
in the Colombian government's civil war against the FARC "will be even
easier to obtain now that Colombia can argue that it needs the assistance
in the name of fighting terrorism." Colombian National Police General
Tobias Duran was also quick to begin making that case. "There's no
doubt the FARC has connections to other terrorist groups," he told the
AP.

[The Colombian government's mouthpieces,
however, are less quick to denounce political violence by the government's
allies, particularly the right-wing paramilitary groups, who receive quiet
support from the military. Such organizations, who field the notorious
"death squads," also commit atrocities, in fact the clear majority of them
according to all credible sources. Classifying one side as terrorists,
while implicitly condoning the violence of the other sides by silence,
makes it easier to bolster support for controversial efforts such as Plan
Colombia that are expected to escalate the ferocity of the nation's decades-long
civil war. Colombia's conflict may be a case where terms such as
"human rights violations" or "war crimes" are more accurate descriptors
even for heinous acts of political violence: In an intractable conflict
such as Colombia's, where all sides are guilty and neither can be shut
down, violence can only effectively be stemmed through negotiations for
peace.]

The drug-terror link is now being exploited
by politicians around the globe, eager to advance their drug war or counterinsurgency
agendas. Hence, whether the drug reform movement should jump into
this debate or not, is a question that may be answered by the drug warriors
themselves. In the face of such an onslaught, drug reform advocates
may have no choice but to start talking about how prohibition fuels the
huge illicit profits that in turn fuel political violence.

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